December
Eighty Kwakiutl are arrested for holding a
potlatch ceremony.
In a village near Alert Bay, off Vancouver Island,
nearly 300 Kwakiutl Indians gather to hold a
potlatch—a ceremony that is outlawed by the Ca-
nadian government (see entry for APRIL 19, 1884).
To assert his authority, the local agent arrests 80
of the most prominent participants. In the subse-
quent trial—conducted in English, a language most
of the defendants do not understand—30 are sen-
tenced to prison terms of up to a year. All are forced
to promise never to attend another potlatch and
to surrender goods that were to be distributed to
guests at the potlatch feast.
The arrests effectively end illegal potlatching,
but they also earn Canadian officials the enmity
of the Kwakiutl people for decades to come. The
Kwakiutl are also outraged by the confiscation of
many treasured masks, costumes, and other pot-
latch paraphernalia. Many of these objects will be
placed on display at the Royal Ontario Museum,
the National Museum in Ottawa, and the Museum
of the American Indian in New York City (see entry
for 1916).
1922Emmet Starr’s History of the Cherokee
Indians is published.
After nearly 30 years of research and writing, Cher-
okee Emmet Starr completes a monumental history
of his people. In addition to a comprehensive
Cherokee genealogy and reproductions of primary
documents, such as laws, treaties, and constitution,
the book features descriptions of Cherokee life and
important historical events both before and after
the tribe’s removal to Indian Territory (see entry for
MAY 1838). Starr’s views of Cherokee history stand
in stark contrast to those of white historians, who
see the Cherokee Nation’s dissolution in 1907 as
the inevitable victory of “civilization.” Starr instead
highlights the many political and social accomplish-
ments of the Cherokee and writes admiringly of
traditional leaders.Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall
tries to take control of executive-
order reservations.
Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall declares that
all reservations formed by executive order, rather
than by treaty, are public-domain lands. His state-
ment is an attempt to take from tribes and give to
the government all rights to these reservations. Fall
is vigorously challenged by several Indian rights
groups, including the Indian Rights Association
(see entry for DECEMBER 1882) and the Ameri-
can Indian Defense Association (see entry for MAY
1923). The policy will be abandoned, partly be-
cause of these groups’ efforts and partly because of
Fall’s resignation under a cloud during the Hard-
ing administration’s Teapot Dome scandal. In 1929,
the former secretary will be convicted of accepting
a bribe in exchange for leasing oil reserves at Teapot
Dome, Wyoming, and Elk Hills, California.Canadian Inuit are filmed in Nanook of
the North.
Considered by cinema historians as the first great
film documentary, Nanook of the North presents
footage of Inuit living along Canada’s Hudson’s Bay.
The director, Robert J. Flaherty, stages many of the
vignettes, encouraging his subjects to act out tra-
ditional activities performed before whites came to
their lands. Much of the film focuses on one man,
Nanook, and his struggles to hunt for food in the
nearly barren Arctic environment. Two years after
the filming, Nanook will die of starvation.SpringCherokee Ruth Muskrat attends a Christian
conference in China.
Cherokee activist Ruth Muskrat travels to Beijing,
China, as the first Indian representative to the annual
World’s Student Christian Federation conference. A
student at Mount Holyoke College, Muskrat, at 25,
is the conference’s youngest participant. She will later